Alexandra Thinks About Things

OpenExpo revisited

You know it’s spring when travels to Berne, Switzerland, hit you again. Regardless of the weather of course. Although this time, it did feel like spring over there and on the day I left for Oslo again, it was really warm, too warm actually for my thick woolen jacket. On the other hand, the jacket was more than needed on my walk from the bus stop to my apartment in Oslo.

Ah well, back to the subject…

After my disastrous train trip South, in Bern itself all went rather smoothly. The hotel was easy to find and I fell into the bed right away. On Wednesday morning, we quickly set up our booth at the OpenExpo and started the day with strong coffee and Gipfeli (a.k.a. Croissants in the rest of the world). There was some confusion with the original hall layout but after some reshuffling, everybody was happy.

Exhibitions are always extremely tiring but also provide great ways of learning about new things and meet new people as well as those one hasn’t seen for a while.

I finally managed to find someone who could establish a contact to Scribus for me – Alessandro who staffed the booth for Libre Graphics – and had the pleasure to meet Liz who works on the OOo Project Renaissance. We had a nice conversation over coffee and I am looking forward to meeting her again next time.

It was the first time I gave a talk wearing my new Qt Software hat and I have to admit that it exactly felt like that. I guess it went rather well though and I didn’t make a complete fool out of myself. Wouldn’t it be boring if there was no room for improvements anyway?

I want to thank Eckhart and Luca for running the booth and patiently answering a zillion partly pretty tricky questions, the openSUSE crew for the DVDs, Fabian from Fedora for hosting Eckhart so uncomplicatedly, Pascal for good spirits and of course /ch/open for the great organization.

Sidenote 1: I had to run to the gate again although Luca and me arrived really early at the airport. Will I ever learn to estimate the time I need correctly?

Sidenote 2: I have to buy a proper camera. Sorry for the constantly blurry shots I take with my mobile phone. If you have a suggestion for a compact model, please be so kind to leave a comment.

6 Responses to OpenExpo revisited

Unfortunately, nearly all recent compact cameras are crap. They have extremely much megapixels, but the pictures are noisy like hell if taken at higher ISO Levels, which means that pictures taken inside rooms are either very noisy or have to be taken with flash (unfortunately, the integrated flash is often crappy as well). This is my experience, but it might be unfair as I compared max. 200€-compact cameras with my rather bulky back-then 600€-SLR (it’s an Canon EOS 400D, which is sold for under 400€ now).

I haven’t tested the camera myself, but the Lumix DMC-FX35 from Panasonic gets pretty good reviews and the price (180€) seems reasonable. Don’t expect too much from it, but the pictures are certainly a gigantic leap from a mobile phone cam.

I’d get a Nikon D40. Yes, it’s a full on SLR, but the picture quality to weight ratio is far better than any of the compacts, and since it has ‚only‘ 6 or so megapixels the low-light performance that blueget mentioned is very good.

I’d suggest a Canon Ixus of some description. I have always found the Canon compact cameras to be higher picture quality than many others, such as the Nikon compacts (which have the grainy image problems described in #1). Otherwise, Nikon or Canon SLRs, but those are heavier and larger and a lot more expensive.

Unfortunately, nearly all recent compact cameras are crap. They have extremely much megapixels, but the pictures are noisy like hell if taken at higher ISO Levels, which means that pictures taken inside rooms are either very noisy or have to be taken with flash (unfortunately, the integrated flash is often crappy as well). This is my experience, but it might be unfair as I compared max. 200€-compact cameras with my rather bulky back-then 600€-SLR (it's an Canon EOS 400D, which is sold for under 400€ now).

I haven't tested the camera myself, but the Lumix DMC-FX35 from Panasonic gets pretty good reviews and the price (180€) seems reasonable. Don't expect too much from it, but the pictures are certainly a gigantic leap from a mobile phone cam.

About me

A Girl Gone Geek.

Discovered the Usenet in 94 and has been lost ever since. Started toying with web sites when browsers were called Lynx. Contributed to KDE. Spent 10 years living opera somewhere in the middle of it all. Learnt a lot.